Robert Irvin Grodstein (1913-90) started out as a child actor in Penrod and Sam (1923), and went on to appear in well over thirty features and shorts until he largely stepped away from acting in the late thirties. Gordon’s most notable role was playing the young Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927).
Gordon directed around thirteen feature films, starting with Rough, Tough and Ready (1945), as well as occasionally writing screenplays. He also directed television episodes in the late fifties and early sixties.
In 1973, Gordon wrote, produced and directed a short documentary, The American People in World War II, which was about the impact of war on the home front.
Robert Gordon was in two MGM musicals of the 1930s: Student Tour and Broadway Melody of 1936.
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